Edward IV
Page 28
2 Below, p. 182.
3 CSP, Milan, I, 157. Apart from the Arrivall, 38, which not unexpectedly attributes his death to ‘pure displeasure and melancholy’ arising from the collapse of the Lancastrian cause, the sources all agree that Henry VI met a violent end. For discussions of the evidence, see Kendall, Richard III, 451–2; Gairdner, Richard III, 16–19. As Gairdner – no friend to Richard III – commented, it is very unlikely that he would have been put to death except after a decision by the king personally, or the king and council.
4 ‘Yorkist Notes, 1471’, as above.
1 English History, 154.
2 The phrase is Burne’s, Battlefields of England, 114
Part III
THE SECOND REIGN, 1471–1483
Chapter 8
DOMESTIC PROBLEMS AND POLICIES, 1471–1475
(i) The Settlement of 1471: Rewards and Punishments
Edward’s first concern on recovering his capital was to complete the pacification of the realm. Two days after his entry into London, he set forth again for Kent with a strong force at his back. Duke Richard of Gloucester had already been sent in advance to receive Fauconberg’s submission and take custody of his ships. This was achieved at Sandwich on 27 May, whilst Edward was in Canterbury. Fauconberg received the pardon he had been promised, on 10 June, and went off to serve with Duke Richard in the north, only to be executed in September, probably by Gloucester, for some new offence. His head was set upon London Bridge, ‘looking into Kent ward’.1 Some of his lieutenants were dealt with more summarily. The petty captains from Essex, Spicing and Quint, who had led the attack on the gates of London, were beheaded, and on 29 May, with Edward still in Canterbury, the rebel mayor, Nicholas Faunt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the Buttermarket opposite the cathedral gate.
Not until July were measures taken to deal with the contumacious garrison of Calais. On the 17th Lord Hastings took over as lieutenant of Calais from Earl Rivers, who wished to go abroad to fight the Saracens. The king’s anger at Rivers’s wishing to go abroad when so much remained to be done at home is said to have led to this replacement, and later to have caused bad blood between the two.2 Soon after, Hastings and his deputy, Lord Howard, crossed over to Calais with a force of 1,500 men. Equipped as they were with pardons for Warwick’s followers, Wrottesley and Gate, and with money to pay the garrison’s wages, they had little difficulty in securing a submission. Richard Whetehill and John Blount were reappointed as captains of Guines and Hammes in the Calais Pale, but Wrottesley, Gate and Montagu’s heir, George Nevill, duke of Bedford, who had been sent there for safety, were brought home to London.1
More time was needed to restore Yorkist authority in Wales. For some time after Tewkesbury large parts of the country were out of royal control. Soon after the battle Roger Vaughan of Tretower was sent out against Jasper Tudor, whose father, Owen Tudor, he is said to have led to the block after Mortimer’s Cross. But Jasper avenged himself by taking and summarily executing Roger at Chepstow. He then gradually withdrew west to Pembroke Castle, taking with him his nephew, Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, whom he had found in the Herbert household at Raglan Castle. Even then a royalist siege of Pembroke had to be raised when a force of Jasper’s Welsh supporters came to his aid. Commissions to deal with rebels to William Herbert, 2nd earl of Pembroke, the earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Ferrers, show that much of Wales was still defiant at the end of August and during September. Towards the end of that month, as the Yorkists slowly gathered strength, Earl Jasper’s position became more precarious, and he and his nephew took ship for France. Bad weather brought them to Brittany, where they became the object of rival moves by Edward IV and Louis XI to obtain possession of their persons. But considerable violence and disorder survived Jasper’s departure from Wales, and highlighted the need for a new political settlement to fill the vacuum left by the death of the 1st earl of Pembroke.2
Meanwhile, Edward had turned his attention to meting out punishment to those who had resisted him in south-eastern England. Most of the work fell to two commissions appointed on 15–16 July, one for Kent, Sussex and the Cinque Ports under Arundel and Dinham, the other for Essex under the earl of Essex and Sir William Bourchier.3 They executed the royal displeasure with vigour, but though many were arrested and some executed, punishments were mainly in the form of fines – a method later taken up and extended by Henry VII. The Great Chronicle remarked that ‘such as were rich were hanged by the purse, and the other that were needy were hanged by the necks, by means whereof the country was greatly impoverished and the king’s coffers some deal increased’, but the records of the commissioners and the exchequer show that John Warkworth was more correct in his belief that even the poorest could buy their pardons if they could scrape the money together; ‘and so,’ he adds, ‘the king had out of Kent much good and little love’.1 Lump sums paid over as communal fines amounted to some £250 for Essex and over £1,700 for Kent.2
Nor were the penalties confined to the common people. The city of Canterbury and the Cinque Ports forfeited their liberties, which had to be bought back. A few powerful individuals who had been implicated in the Bastard’s activities also had to purchase the king’s grace with heavy fines. Reginald West, Lord de la Warr, who was pardoned on 15 October, was made to enter into bonds to pay a fine of 1,000 marks to Thomas Vaughan, treasurer of the chamber, for the king’s use. Outside the south-east similar fines were extracted from William Tournay, the new prior of St John’s, and three of his fellow-Hospitallers (£300), from Sir William Eure and other Yorkshire gentry (£400), and probably also from Sir John Arundell, the Cornish knight who had helped to raise the West Country for Queen Margaret.3 It is likely that other ‘gifts’ were extracted from the several Lancastrian bishops who had been placed in the Tower after Barnet, and who obtained pardons during the summer and autumn. The city of Coventry also had to pay considerable sums to the king, including 400 marks to secure the restoration of its liberties, and other towns which had shown undue favour to the Lancastrians may have suffered the same fate.4 How much money Edward raised by these means is not known, especially since it may have been paid to the chamber rather than the exchequer, but it is likely to have been considerable.5
Yet even now Edward showed himself neither ruthless nor vindictive in the punishment of political disaffection. His unchallenged authority would have allowed him greater latitude for a policy of vengeance than had been possible in 1461, but he still preferred clemency. Only thirteen sentences of attainder followed the upheavals of 1469–71, and at least six of those sentenced were already dead.6 Twenty-three of the attainders passed earlier in the reign were reversed during the parliament of 1472–5.1 Many more people were pardoned rather than punished. Even if their loyalty had not been seriously in doubt, many men probably thought it prudent to take advantage of the general pardon proclaimed by Edward during October 1471, but the long list of several hundred pardons on the bulky Pardon Roll of Edward’s eleventh year includes a considerable number for men who had been deeply implicated in opposition to the House of York over the previous two years. Eight bishops, all originally appointed under Henry VI, had supported the Readeption, and six of these were pardoned before the end of the year, although two holders of Welsh sees, Hunden of Llandaff and Tully of St David’s, had to wait until February and September 1472.2 A great many formerly committed Lancastrians were now received into the king’s grace. Some of these were men who had been especially loyal and close to the ex-king and queen, such as John Fortescue, chancellor in exile to King Henry, Dr John Morton, the future cardinal, who had also shared Margaret’s exile and held the office of keeper of privy seal to Henry, Henry Lowys, ‘ruler and governor’ of Henry VI’s household during the Readeption, and several members of such hostile families as Roos, Ormond and Courtenay. Some now began a new career in Edward’s service. Sir Richard Tunstall, the brave and stubborn defender of Harlech, who had been master of the mint in 1470, became a royal councillor. Morton soon came to enjoy the king’
s ‘secret trust and special favour’; already in 1472 he was master of the rolls and was promoted to the see of Ely in 1478. His rapid rise in the royal service is a good example of Edward’s political realism in making use of talent wherever he found it. There was only one exception to this record of clemency. Edward did not trust the most prominent of the surviving Lancastrians still in England: Henry Holland, duke of Exeter, was removed from sanctuary at Westminster late in May 1471, and joined Margaret of Anjou as a prisoner in the Tower, and his wife, the king’s sister, Anne, was allowed to divorce him in order to marry her lover, Thomas St Leger.3
Generous with pardons, Edward was no less lavish with rewards. No one who had rendered him or his family good service during the ‘late troubles’ went unnoticed. Mark Symondson, master of the Antony which had brought him to England in March, and her helmsman, Robert Michelson of Hull, both got annuities. His host in Holland, Lewis of Bruges, was created earl of Winchester, with an annuity of £200, during his diplomatic mission to England in October 1472. Many of the humbler gentlemen and yeomen of the household who had shared his exile were given appropriate preferments.1 Thomas Milling, abbot of Westminster, who had sheltered the queen and her family during Edward’s absence abroad, and had stood godfather to the infant prince, was appointed prince’s chancellor on 8 July, and was eventually promoted to the see of Hereford in 1474.2 The young clerk, William Dudley, one of the first to join Edward in March 1471, became dean of the chapel royal and dean of Windsor, as well as chancellor to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, and was later preferred to the very rich see of Durham in 1476.3 Sir Richard Beauchamp, whose loyalty as constable of Gloucester had been so vital during the Tewkesbury campaign, got rather less than he deserved with an annuity of 40 marks. There were many other rewards for men like Sir William Parr of Kendal, Sir William Stanley, Sir John Fogge, and others below baronial rank who had rendered useful service to the Yorkist cause.4
As might be expected, however, the largest rewards went to the magnates who had done so much to aid Edward’s restoration, and especially to the royal dukes. Provision for his family and his aristocratic supporters in fact absorbed almost all the quite considerable gains in forfeited land and wardships which came into Edward’s hands as a result of the political upheavals of 1471.5 Already lieutenant of Calais, Hastings was further repaid for his unswerving devotion with the offices of constable of Nottingham Castle and steward and keeper of Sherwood Forest, and the custody of most of the estates of the West-Country heiress, his stepdaughter, Cecily Bonville, together with her marriage.6 The earl of Essex became treasurer of England again on 22 April 1471, and was to hold that very remunerative office until the end of the reign, and there were rewards for Suffolk, Northumberland, Arundel and Wiltshire.1 Only Norfolk and Rivers amongst the magnates seem to have been overlooked, though Earl Rivers, like Hastings, now obtained a thousand-pound annuity from Duke Charles of Burgundy.2
The chief beneficiary of Edward’s restoration was certainly his younger brother. Duke Richard had shown ability as well as a solid loyalty during the upheavals of the previous two years, and the extent of his rewards showed how far the nineteen-year-old duke had come to enjoy his brother’s confidence. Apart from recovering the offices of constable and admiral of England which he had held before the Readeption, he was made great chamberlain of England in place of Warwick on 18 May. At the same time Edward took the opportunity to provide him with a landed appanage far more generous than he had enjoyed in the 1460s, and, by making him essentially the heir to Warwick’s power and influence in the north of England, marked him out for special responsibility in the government of that hitherto rebellious and lawless region.3 By contrast with Clarence, Richard had few estates of his own before 1470. In the early 1460s he had been given some lands forfeited from the Hungerfords and de Veres, the lordship of Richmond, and the earldom of Pembroke, but for various reasons – among them the jealousy of Clarence – these grants had been cancelled or withdrawn, and he had received only modest compensation.4 Now, on 29 June 1471, he was granted in tail male Warwick’s lordships of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire and Penrith in Westmorland, together with the rest of the earl’s entailed estates in those counties. This complex of lands – Warwick’s paternal inheritance – was the only part of his estates of which Edward could quickly dispose, for the remainder, in southern and central England and the Welsh Marches, belonged to his widowed countess, Anne Beauchamp.1 In December 1471 the king rounded off Richard’s endowment with a grant of the forfeited estates of John de Vere, earl of Oxford, and of the leaders of the Lincolnshire rebellion, lying chiefly in Essex and the eastern counties, a considerable endowment totalling some eighty manors in all, and probably worth well over £1,000 yearly.2
Despite his timely desertion of Warwick in April 1471, Clarence’s record of treachery and ambition stood out in sharp contrast to his younger brother’s loyalty, and he could expect correspondingly less from the king. Nevertheless, he was allowed to retain the lieutenancy of Ireland, and, on 28 August 1471, was amply rewarded for the loss of the Percy estates he had held until 1470 by a grant of all the forfeited lands of the Courtenay family in Devon and Cornwall, which confirmed his position as the greatest landowner in the West Country.3 With this, however, he was far from content.
(ii) The Quarrel of Clarence and Gloucester, 1477–1475
The bitter rivalry which developed between his two brothers provided Edward with his most tiresome domestic problem in these years. Dissension between them was not altogether new. Even in his adolescence Clarence had shown himself jealous at any hint of undue favour to his brother. The very generous provision which Edward made for Clarence did not prevent the latter’s resenting the grant to Richard of the great North-Country Honour of Richmond, and this apparently persuaded the king to revoke his grant and give it to Clarence instead.4 Nor was Duke George in any way chastened by the events of 1469–71. A more judicious man might have thought himself lucky to be alive and at liberty after his attempts to take his brother’s throne. Common prudence dictated a quiet acceptance of whatever favours Edward chose to bestow on Richard. How far he took exception to the grants made to Richard in 1471 is not known, but he could not control his anger as soon as he heard that Gloucester wished to marry his sister-in-law, the widowed Anne Nevill, now sixteen years of age.
Clarence’s interest seems to have been as much greed as jealousy, for he had already shown that he wished to keep the whole great Beauchamp-Despenser inheritance of the earls of Warwick for himself, in right of his wife, Isabel, and to deny the rights of her younger sister.1 That Gloucester should have wished to marry the lady is scarcely surprising, for she was the most eligible heiress in England. Anne’s self-interest was equally engaged, for Gloucester was probably the only husband who could enforce her rights against Clarence, and we do not need to suppose any romantic attachment between the two.2 According to one account, Clarence tried to frustrate his brother by concealing Anne as a disguised kitchen-maid in London, but Richard sought her out and carried her off to sanctuary at St Martin’s. She seems to have become his wife between 12 February and 18 March 1472, without even waiting for the necessary papal dispensation.3
Even before the marriage took place, the strife between the royal dukes had become open and bitter, and during the winter of 1471–2 Edward felt compelled to intervene. The brothers were summoned to put their dispute before the royal council. There each argued his case with a skill and eloquence which won the approval of the professional lawyers present, and the Croyland Chronicler took occasion to remark on ‘the surpassing talents’ which George and Richard had in common with their royal brother. During a meeting at Sheen palace in February 1472, the king pleaded with Clarence on Richard’s behalf, only to receive the angry reply that he might have the Lady Anne but not her lands.4 Royal pressure forced a settlement, though it was very much a surrender to Clarence’s arrogance. In return for giving up a portion of the Warwick inheritance to Richard, Clarence was promised, on
18 March 1472, full security in all the remainder and in the lands of the Courtenay earldom of Devon, previously granted to him, and Edward went so far as to promise that if any of these should be recovered against him, then the king would provide recompense. A week later Clarence was formally created Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, and was given a group of the Kingmaker’s Nevill manors in Essex and the midlands, together with his town house, the Erber, close to London Stone. Finally, Duke Richard, who had shown considerable moderation throughout, resigned the office of great chamberlain of England in his brother’s favour.1
But the transfer to the royal dukes of the Kingmaker’s vast estates was beset by problems other than their competing claims. There were serious legal difficulties to overcome. Firstly, the larger part of the inheritance, especially Clarence’s share, belonged in law to Warwick’s widow, as heiress of her father, Earl Richard Beauchamp, and her mother, Isabel Despenser.2 From her sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, Countess Anne tried desperately to protect her rights, appealing to Edward, Clarence, Gloucester and other members of the royal family, and petitioning parliament in the winter of 1472.3 Secondly, many of the Nevill estates of Warwick’s paternal inheritance had been held by him in tail male, and the heir-at-law was his nearest surviving male relative, George Nevill, duke of Bedford, Montagu’s young son. If Clarence and Gloucester were to be secure, it was essential to extinguish his claims.4 Thirdly, there was the general problem of their title. If Warwick and Montagu had been attainted, Clarence and Gloucester could have held their lands only by royal grant. This would have made them vulnerable to acts of resumption, and hence dependent on continuing royal favour. Clarence was especially anxious on this point, for, under the resumption act passed in 1473, Gloucester was exempted, but he was not, and had to sacrifice the Honour of Tutbury and other lands and offices granted to him from the Duchy of Lancaster. The Croyland Chronicler believed that he strongly resented this, and his testimony is confirmed by the need to appoint a special commission to take possession, in January 1474, of all the properties in four midland counties resumed against Clarence – clearly a special measure to overcome the duke’s opposition.5